In spite of being a partial Scot and the keeper of many hogs, I had never heard of Hogmanay. I thank all of you for all the interesting things you’ve shared here. I now have a new favorite holiday.
Happy Hogmanay!

I walked around the corner to Peckerhead Pete’s to drop off some empty egg cartons for a friend of his who is raising chickens. While we sat on his front porch drinking coffee I casually asked how he was doing with his laptop computer. He said he hadn’t touched it in several weeks and that he would sell it for $200. I said I’d give him $50 a month for four months and he agreed!

It just finished recharging the battery and the next step is to reset it to the factory settings to eliminate anything that Pete or anyone he let use it may have done. Then I’ll download the Windows 8.1 update.

Any doubt what a scummy thug Putin really is? Yesterday, a Russian judge pulled a stunt straight out of Game of Thrones, handing prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a suspended sentence on politically motivated charges of fraud but sentencing his younger brother Oleg – a politically inactive postal worker – to three and a half years in a penal colony in Alexei’s stead.

US F&W is also apparently planning to permanently remove all wolves in the lower 48 from protection lists. As Defenders of Wildlife notes:

For the first time in more than 40 years, nearly every gray wolf in the Lower 48 could be stripped of protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could announce its final decision to delist wolves any day now.

If they do move forward with delisting, it will mean they’ve ignored the recommendations of their own scientific peer review panel – and leave wolves at the mercy of extreme anti-wolf state politicians, putting the recovery of wolves everywhere at grave risk.

And the new fascist-majority Congress will surely OK any and all such nonsense.